The KellyMichaellaCo Etsy shop

Etched on the Heart

Mooresville mom creates engraved gifts for customers around the world

by Grace Kennedy photography by Jamie Cowles

Kelly Brown believes every small business has a story. The story of Brown’s online gift shop, KellyMichaellaCo, began when she learned she was expecting a daughter and was determined to find a way to support herself while doing something she loved.

“I was in college with aspirations of attending medical school and I was working a part time job,” recalls Brown. “My number one priority was finding something I loved to do while also having the ability to stay home and raise my little girl.”

Crafting has always come naturally to Brown, so she began selling custom baby onesies online, telling herself she could always use them for her own daughter if no one bought them. That didn’t turn out to be necessary. By the time Brown’s daughter came into the world, orders for the onesies were pouring in, and KellyMichaellaCo has doubled in sales every year since it began.

Having invested in the tools needed to create hand-engraved pieces, Brown has pivoted away from onesies and focuses on laser cut personalized gifts. She is known for her custom lake ornaments which feature handcrafted laser cut images of lakes requested by her customers. She can create detailed images of any lake, anywhere in the world. She can also engrave custom messages on the back of the ornaments, creating one-of-a-kind mementos to hang on the tree year after year. another baby on the way. Knowing that her daughter wants to be “just like Mommy,” Brown makes it work for both of them. “I will sit her in my lap and let her pretend to put ornaments together or let her color on my mistake pieces. Mostly, I just take it one day at a time and remind myself that she is the reason I started this business and if I have to take a day off because she doesn’t want to cooperate then I am beyond blessed to have that flexibility.”

Brown’s gift for turning a piece of wood into a personalized memento has resulted in countless memorable stories, like the time she was commissioned to engrave the images of three huskies who had passed on, as a gift for the dogs’ owner. Brown received a video of the recipient opening the gift with tears in his eyes.

It’s this passion for the work that sets KellyMichaellaCo apart from the big-name retailers. “When you purchase from big companies you may get your item for pennies cheaper but there isn’t a person behind the computer doing a little happy dance like there is when you shop small,” says Brown.

With such stunning products, it’s not just Brown doing a happy dance—her customers have plenty of reasons to do a dance themselves.

www.kellymichaellaco.com www.etsy.com/shop/KellyMichaellaCo @kellymichaellaco on Instagram and Facebook